A general slice of life from a 40 soon to be 50 something husband, father, mountain biker,... Whatever I am into, I am REALLY into. Life is always better with gear. This blog follows my interests to a high level of mumbo jumbo detail

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Sram X-7 trigger review

Here's a quick review of the X-7 trigger from Sram

Used one on the Right side only for a few months. Kept grip shift on left side because of trim issues inherent with triggers.

From what I've read the X-7 is identical to the X9 with the exception of a metal thumb tab:

But the X-0 trigger is a completely different animal:

I liked the X-7 trigger ok, Didn't love it and went back to a gripshift. It does shift crisply works well, but my gripes with it were more ergonimcs based as opposed to functional.

You can mount them inboard or outboard of your brake levers, but the X-7 thumb lever is not adjustable. And the throw wasn't ideal for my smaller thumbs. These triggers work with just the thumb as opposed to the older rapidfire that were thumb/index finger. It takes only a few rides to get used to how these operate.

There is a dead space in the lever travel on the X7 which creates a sort of delay in the shift. Once pushed it takes longer than I wanted for it to shift into gear. But I will say that it does Chunk and shift positively into gear.

Going down the cogset (to a higher gear) was fast and quick but it does require a specific click for every gear you go down. Which means that when you are dropping a bunch of gears at a time you are clicking really fast.

I preferred the quicker gear grabs and gear dumps with grip shift where you can grab a handfull all at once for the steep climb or downhill that catches you off guard.

The X0 trigger solves much of the issues with the X7 that I have. Namely that ergonomic adjustability of the main thumb lever, and the 0 degrees loss in the lever.

I may get some X0 triggers or wait a few years until they come down in price.

One thing that sucked big time is the plastic screw that covers the cable inlet. It strips if you just look at it wrong. They really need to get their act together and get a different style of cover. Either a metal hex head or something else, because this is just plain bad.

You also should check your derailleur hanger with a Park DAG1 and make sure that it is in spec, as these shifters really do need a well aligned hanger to work well.